


Industrial Revolution

by Bibliodragon



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Industrial Disputes, Infinity Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26658601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliodragon/pseuds/Bibliodragon
Summary: The Infinity Huragok have learnt about industrial action. Roland had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	Industrial Revolution

**Author's Note:**

> For Infinity Week Day 6, Prompt: Union

“Now before we begin,” said Roland. “I want it to be absolutely clear that I had nothing to do with this.”

From the holo-projector on the table, the AI watched the twitch of the right eyebrow that heralded Captain Lasky’s ‘I don’t know what this is about but I’m going to listen carefully anyway’ face. Across the other side of the table the Huragok Lists Forward floated above the chair which the Captain had left out, and maintained their poker face. Which to be honest was pretty much the same expression they normally held.

“Alright Roland, noted. It’s nice to see you again, Lists. Roland told me you wanted to speak to me.” Lasky pulled his tablet towards him and flicked it on, but his gaze didn’t drop from the Huragok’s. Lists just blinked slowly, three sets of eyes just ever so slightly out of sync, and brought up two of their tentacles to respond.

<Greetings Captain. It is good of you to make time for me.> The voice of the translator was flat and emotionless, but deep down in his code Roland was sure there was a touch of reproach there. And maybe just a touch of smug.

“The Captain is a very busy man, with a very, very busy schedule,” he said. “Please understand it involved a lot of effort to get this moved up.” While talking he generated the image of a mini-Huragok which floated beside his avatar and with a wave of golden tentacles told the Huragok _You’ve done enough with the human pleasantries, now get on with it so we can get this over with._

“That’s quite alright Roland, and I appreciate that you have a lot of things to do beyond acting as secretary, so thank you for that,” Lasky said, with the same even, friendly tone Roland recognised from such negotiations as ‘Party of Sangheili who know about that latest thing ONI did, and that they know we know, and we know that they know that we know,’ and ‘the Infinity IT department vs Commander Palmer, also known as What is and is not Considered to be Good Practice in Error Handling.’ 

<I thank both of you then. And once again, much appreciated.> And underneath with movements too quick to be picked up by the translator _I follow the Captain’s lead because he is at the top of the social and military hierarchy. That is human politeness, is it not?_

Oh yeah, definite smugness. Roland kept the face of his avatar in neutral, but sent a flash of feelings that could be broadly translated into _don’t push it, gasbag!_

The Huragok just continued to hover primly, touching the tips of their top two tentacles together in a gesture not dissimilar from a human tenting their fingers.

“You are part of the crew, Lists. You have as much right to bring your concerns to me as anyone else on this ship.” Captain Lasky, at a disadvantage to the subtleties of artificial intelligence communication and aware of it, just looked down at the information on the tablet as if seeing it for the first time. “Now, I have reports from Huragok Liaison, and from Roland, but I want to hear from you, in your own words.”

<I am more than happy to do so. We have gone on strike.> The Huragok leaned closer and blinked his out of sync blink.

“On strike,” Lasky said evenly, and looked back down. “I have several reports that from 0700 this morning the Huragok group stopped working on their assigned tasks, returned to their quarters and began work creating an unknown object. Further requests made of them have been ignored.”

<Yes, that is correct. You do not need to be alarmed Captain, we are not creating anything that will bring harm to the ship. We are merely working on our own project until our asks are met.>

Roland knew full well from past experience that the Huragok could have a funny definition of what counted as harm. Such as the turning-the-toaster-into-a-nuke thing that didn’t count as harm because it did not actually go off. However he had been carefully monitoring the rest of Infinity’s Huragok population and their actions since the mornings lack of action, and so far no radiation signatures. Just a very silvery cube of metal scraps about four times the size as one of its makers, covered in Huragok markings. His attempts at translating them were in the Captain’s report.

“On strike,” Lasky said again.

<Yes>

“Before I get to what you want- and I will don’t worry about that. But can I ask just one thing? Where did you find out about industrial action? To the best of my knowledge that wasn’t something Huragok in the Covenant ever did?”

<In the Covenant the preference was to work to rule. And that was not with the purpose to gain an improvement in conditions.>

_No, that was just to let the Covenant blow themselves up with Halos (and the rest of the universe with them!)_ “That you’ve heard,” Roland said, voice incredulous. “I mean, let’s not avoid the elephant in the room, you, Lists, were created here on Infinity.”

Lists gave a flick of their tentacles, a Huragok shrug. <That is true, I have only shared memory, but I am quite confident they are accurate to 98.812653346-“

“That’s quite alright Lists. We believe you.” Captain Lasky gave Roland a Look, not an angry look, just a Look. Roland put his hands behind his back and stared straight ahead. In Huragok sign, he sent Lists what could be broadly translated as a Look of his own. Lists ignored him.

“Lists, are you and the other Huragok unhappy here?” Lasky said, putting his hands flat on the table. “Do you consider your conditions to be poor?”

<On the contrary, we have adequate sustenance and a well maintained environment. The technology on-board remains in an acceptable condition of 99.6519475445…”

Roland watched as the Captain looked back down at his reports, a slight frown on what Roland dubbed his Thinking Face, as the Huragok continued to rattle off numbers in the monotone of the translator. “So what you’re saying is that things are too good?”

<We need more work.>

“Again, Captain, to be clear, I had absolutely nothing to do with this,” said Roland, with all the bitterness of someone who had Opinions about his state of existence but whose vast majority of peers were based on the brains of individuals who, in life, could be politely described as ‘independently minded tech heads.’

“You want more work. Well, as problems go, there could be worse ones.” Lasky leaned forward, all serious and giving it far too much earnest consideration as far as Roland was concerned. “I know you and the others are much more advanced than humanity when it comes to technology, and I’m sure there are so many improvements you could make. But we don’t want to just be handed an ‘I win’ button. What would happen to us if you left?"

_Like what you did to the Covenant_ Roland sent to Lists, while also creating a locked file consisting of a jumble of code which the closest translation to human speech would be _*cough*Only reason ONI doesn’t take the I Win button*cough*_. A picosecond later he deleted it. Then cleared and deleted the Recylce Bin. Just to be sure.

<Our purpose is to mend and to enhance and improve> Lists said. <It is our sole reason for existence. We fix, therefore we are.>

“I guess there’s something to be said about having such certainty about your place in the universe,” Lasky said, with a brief flash of his lopsided thoughtful smile. “So shoot. What is it you’re suggesting?”

<We could make significant improvements to the housing unit for the ship’s AI construct, for a start. It was installed in a sub-optimal manner.>

“Abso-lutely not!” Roland spluttered in indignation. “Look here, you are not putting a single tentacle anywhere near me!” To Lists he sent a string of code which included repeated use of the symbols found on the top row of an old fashioned keyboard. Caps lock on. “Here’s an idea, if they need things to fix, why don’t we just wait until Commander Palmer is in a particularly bad mood and send her into the tech lab?”

For a brief moment the Huragok’s bioluminescence brightened and then cut out, the first outward sign of agitation shown since the meeting began. Lasky gave Roland his Disapproving Look.

“What? Lists started it!” Roland refused to allow himself to feel guilty about it.

Lasky took a breath and held it, coincidently long enough a human mind could count to five, then exhaled slowly. “Lists, you know I can’t let you in to the AI core without Roland’s permission-” “And Roland says no!” “-but there must be something else we can help you with. You said it yourself: your purpose is to repair and maintain. Are you really saying every Huragok on this ship will down tools, so to speak, and refuse to do any work from now on because you want more work?”

Lists tilted their head (and Roland was not going to be reminded of a dog faced with a particularly challenging math problem, absolutely not!) and chirruped softly. <Sometimes you need to disassemble before you can put something together. But admittedly it is not a long term solution. My fellows trust me to speak for them as they tend to look at the immediate situation.>

“You know, I’m sure if you went in there with a broken tablet you could get them back on side just like that,” Roland said in an aside to the Captain, while sending to Lists _Your admitting the weakness. You are so incredibly bad at this! Why can’t you just ask for more time off like normal people? Yeast-sludge pay rise? Invent the Huragok weekend!_

Lists ignored him. They just continued to look blankly at the Captain, the tips of their top two tentacles tapping against one another. <There are a variety of mundane repairs currently covered by human crew which could provide brief distraction.>

“And you would be happy to restrict yourselves to doing just that? Simple repairs to their original state? No improvements?”

<With proper supervision to remind us, yes.> For the first time Lists look over at Roland.

Roland’s directed his avatar to look from Lists to the Captain, and then back again. “Oh great, so not only do you want more work for yourselves, you want to dump more on me too!” To Lists, he made use of the keyboard’s top row again.

“Think of it more as a promotion to management,” said Lasky.

“I did say I had absolutely nothing to do with this, right?”


End file.
